IIT Roorkee to prepare vision document on Dal by July 2016

SRINAGAR: The Lakes and Waterways Development Authority (LAWDA) has hired Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee to prepare its much-talked ‘vision document’ on Dal Lake.
Vice-chairman LAWDA Sarmad Hafeez told Kashmir Reader that a team from IIT Roorkee visited Srinagar last week for “working out the modalities” pre-assessment.
“As they have assured us, the vision document will be completed by the end of July this year,” he added.
The decision to hire IIT Roorkee was approved by LAWDA’s Board of Directors in a recent meeting and subsequently the offer was agreed to by the former.
The document will decide the fate of the land mass inside Dal Lake as to whether it be retained as floating gardens, converted into environmental parks or dredged out and added to water expanse. The LAWDA has claimed to have acquired 1,463 kanals of land mass inside the lake. Barring the 217 kanals that were added to the water expanse recently, the rest of the land is under its “actual possession.”
“The fate of the land to be acquired from the Dal dwellers, whether to be retained or removed, shall be decided in accordance with the vision document,” Sarmad Hafeez said, adding, all this would be done scientifically and not haphazardly. “It would be a professional vision document,” Hafeez said.
Regarding 217 kanals of land near Foreshore road, he said, it has been dredged out on and added to the water expanse.
In terms of Board decision, Hafeez said, they have been asked to formulate detailed project report (DPR) for up-gradation of three old Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and installation of STP at Teilbal.
“They will quote their offer along-with time period and proposed technology could be adopted and the same shall be placed before the government for arrangement of funds”.
As per the LAWDA’s information to the high court, 8 lakh cubic meters of untreated effluents are daily added to the Lake. With the construction of the new STP at Telbal, LAWDA believes that a large part of such effluents would go to the Dal after treatment.

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Launched in May 2012, Kashmir Reader is one of the leading English language newspapers of Jammu and Kashmir. It’s published daily from Srinagar by Helpline Group, which earned a name and fame in serious journalism